


Percy Jackson and the Olympians read The Lightning Thief

by uknguyen18



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-29
Updated: 2018-07-19
Packaged: 2019-05-30 07:04:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15091604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uknguyen18/pseuds/uknguyen18
Summary: Because I felt nostalgic and miss the PJO fandom, I decided to write this lil fun tidbit. This was also a way for me to reread the PJO series. This is post HoO and pre-TOA without all the Apollo messed up junk. 100% of this is probably going to be unedited... Enjoy!I would like to disclaim that I do not own any of these characters nor do I own the writing nor do I profit off of anything I or Mr. Rick Riordan have written. This is completely for fun.





	1. We’re Fed Up With Doing Hero Stuff For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yea boy we're just getting STARTED

“OH COME ON!” a voice shouted in the throne room of the Olympians.

To the gods’ surprise, a pile of demigods lay sprawled at their feet. However, they weren’t any ordinary group of demigods, the pile consisted of the heroes of Olympus. These demigods have saved the gods on more occasions that they would like to admit.

“You think you’re done doing hero stuff and then you get teleported here. I think I speak for all of us when I say we're fed up with doing hero stuff for you,” Percy Jackson, a veteran of saving the gods’ butts, complained. “You know I was on my final exam for the last class I needed to finish to graduate high school!”

Zeus narrowed his eyes at the eighteen-year-old boy. “I could smite you,” he grumbled.

“Squished,” a voice managed from the bottom of the pile. Leo Valdez was, indeed, squished at the bottom of the pile of demigods.

Nico di Angelo, son of Hades, pushed everyone off of him and stood, brushing himself off. “So why have you summoned us, Lord Zeus?” he asked, being a little more polite than Percy had been.

“I didn’t summon you,” Zeus said.

Just as he was saying that a boombox appeared as his feet and started playing a static-filled recording of someone explaining their predicament. “Hello!” a cheerful voice said. “I’m your omnipotent writer. Yes, I do realize that this is a fourth-wall break, but we’re just going to have to deal with it to keep the plot flowing.”

The disentangled demigods looked at each other, quizzical looks on their faces. Who was this talking to them?

“So for the sake of the story,” she continued, “I’ve just stopped time outside of this throne room and you can go about your lives after you’ve read all of these." As she finished her sentence, a set of 10 books fell from the ceiling and hit Jason Grace square on the head. Despite being the son of the Lord of the Sky, he was not protected from anything falling or flying through the sky.

“The majority of these will be in Percy’s point of view, so please refrain from hitting him whilst reading,” she said. “Gods, remember to treat your children with care and don’t smite any of them. They have saved you countless times, and this is the safest thing they can do given their age and power. Happy reading!”

It was true. The group of demigods radiated with power, almost glowing. Whoever the girl was, she knew her stuff.

There was Annabeth Chase, the eldest of the bunch. With her blonde hair and steely grey eyes, there was no mistaking the daughter of Athena. She was clad in comfortable leggings and a big t-shirt. It was apparent that she wasn’t planning on going anywhere too public anytime soon.

By her side was Percy Jackson, the spiteful hero. Percy’s windswept look made him seem like he just dried off from a day at the beach, despite his prior claim of testing. He too was dressed in sweats, not planning on going out today.

Next to them stood Jason Grace and Piper McLean. Jason had bags under his eyes and was wearing some kind of toga as if he was about to do some official pontifex business. Piper had her hair up and various writing utensils stuck in her hair, as if she was working on something and didn’t have any time to bother keeping her pens in a neat bag.

Then there was Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque, looking as out of place and as awkward as they could. Both were wearing their usual jeans and purple t-shirts, probably going about their normal legionnaire business. The pair didn’t say much about it, but everyone could tell that they were intimidated and awed by the gods before them

After them there were the two steel-faced warriors, Thalia Grace and Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano. Thalia looked worried that she was leaving her Hunters alone without proper orders to guide them while Reyna just looked perplexed. Both seemed to wonder what they did to be summoned into the throne room of the gods.

Then there was Nico di Angelo and Will Solace, the two complete opposites. Nico seemed to be steaming mad, but Will’s presence calmed him. Instead of cracks appearing at Nico’s feet and skeletons threatening to crawl out, the space around the son of Hades was pristine, and Nico’s usual dampening demeanor was out-shined by Will’s sunny disposition.

Last but not least was Leo Valdez and Calypso. The son of Hephaestus had lost interest in whatever was happening and was already tinkering with different gears and wires that he kept pulling out of his toolbelt. Already his hands were covered in a film of oil and grime as they twisted the copper pieces together, and Calypso looked on with interest, wondering how Leo could just go on autopilot like that.

“So who should we have read?” Annabeth asked.

Apollo rolled his eyes. “Obviously me,” he stated. “I’ve got the most melodious voice.”

Before anyone could argue with him (cough Artemis), Apollo picked up the first book. He snapped his fingers, summoning a nice couch and beanbags for the demigods to share. Opening the book he read aloud, “The Lightning Thief: Chapter One I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher.”


	2. I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher

_ Look, I didn’t want to be a half-blood. _

“Did anyone?” Jason interrupted. When all of the gods glared at him, Jason almost apologized.

“No,” grumbled Percy, stopping Jason’s apologies in its tracks. Unlike Jason, Percy didn’t care what the gods thought of his attitude.

_ If you’re reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. _

_ Being a half-blood is dangerous. It’s scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. _

_ If you’re a normal kid, reading this because you think it’s fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. _

_ But if you recognize yourself in these pages--if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it’s only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they’ll come for you. _

_ Don’t say I didn’t warn you. _

_ My name is Percy Jackson. _

“God, you were so dramatic back then,” Leo said. “Who hurt you?”

Percy glared at the elfish boy. The look he gave Leo would have shut anyone else up, but not Leo.

“Nevermind about back then,” Leo mumbled. “You’re still so dramatic.

_ I’m twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York. _

_ Am I a troubled kid? _

“YES!” screamed Athena, Thalia, Reyna, and Zeus.

Zeus cleared his throat. “Excuse me,” he said. “Carry on.”

_ Yeah. You could say that. _

“HE AGREES!” Athena, Thalia, and Reyna pointed out.

Apollo rolled his eyes and continued reading.

_ I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan--twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff. _

_ I know--it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were. _

“Young man, I hope you know that looking at ancient Greek and Roman artifacts is not torture and you should learn to have respect for your heritage,” Athena said haughtily.

Poseidon rolled his eyes while Percy responded, “I don’t need to know everything about my heritage unless it’s something you all made angry and they’re trying to kill me to get back at you.”

“He’s got a point,” Jason agreed as everyone grumbled to back the son of Poseidon.

_ But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes. _

_ Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn’t think he’d be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn’t put me to sleep. _

“That doesn’t sound safe,” Leo muttered.

Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia smiled knowingly, glancing at each other and sharing fond looks. “Don’t worry, he’s the best guy to have around,” Percy said.

_ I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn’t get in trouble. _

_ Boy, was I wrong. _

“It’s okay, Seaweed Brain,” Annabeth grinned, taking Percy’s hand. “You’re always wrong.”

“Hey,” Percy whined.

“Yea, Annabeth. Don’t be too harsh on him,” Thalia said, causing Percy to grin in triumph. “He’s only wrong like 90% of the time. Give him a little credit.”

_ See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn’t aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway. And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea. _

_ This trip, I was determined to be good. _

“Is Percy going to be a good boy today?” Leo said in a baby voice. “Is little Percy going to be a good boy today?”

Percy glared at him again, and if there was any water around the demigods Leo would have surely drowned by now. This time Leo decided to shut up.

_ All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, red-headed kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich. _

_ Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must’ve been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don’t let that fool you. You should’ve seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria. _

“So fauns and satyrs do have similarities,” Reyna grumbled, probably remembering one too many times during which she had been trampled.

_ Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn’t do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip. _

“Are all of you children really this wild?” Demeter asked in shock.

“Yea,” chorused Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, Piper, Leo, and Will.

The gods looked over to the silent few with questionable looks.

“Back in my day we didn’t have the option to be naughty,” Hazel grumbled.

Nico nodded. “Bianca kept me in line for the most part. Then I was locked away in a casino for forever so I never really faced authority,” he said with a shrug.

“I used to look like a giant teddy bear,” Frank started before realizing how dumb that sounded. “I mean I used to be a little baby-faced, and I was really clumsy. I’m just going to shut up now.”

“I might’ve broken a few rules,” Jason said sheepishly.

“No comment,” said Reyna, ending the discussion with a sense of finality and mystery.

_ “I’m going to kill her,” I mumbled. _

_ Grover tried to calm me down. “It’s okay. I like peanut butter.” _

_ He dodged another piece of Nancy’s lunch. _

_ “That’s it.” I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat. _

_ “You’re already on probation,” he reminded me. “You know who’ll get blamed if anything happens.” _

_ Looking back on it, I wish I’d decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would’ve been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into. _

_ Mr. Brunner led the museum tour. _

_ He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery. _

“I love the MET galleries,” Athena said, dreamily.

_ It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years. _

_ He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye. _

“So he’s not all that bad,” Athena grumbled, looking at how close her daughter and the son of Poseidon were sitting.

_ Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown. _

“Monster?” Frank asked.

Percy didn’t respond but gave Frank a look that said “just you wait.”

_ From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, “Now, honey,” real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month. _

_ One time, after she’d made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn’t think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, “You’re absolutely right.” _

Piper leaned over to Frank and whispered, “Definitely monster.”

_ Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. _

_ Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, “Will you shut up?” _

_ It came out louder than I meant it to. _

_ The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story. _

_ “Mr. Jackson,” he said, “did you have a comment?” _

_ My face was totally red. I said, “No, sir.” _

_ Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. “Perhaps you’ll tell us what this picture represents?” _

_ I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. “That’s Kronos eating his kids, right?” _

And all the gods in the room who recalled that moment winced.

_ “Yes,” Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. “And he did this because ...” _

_ “Well...” I racked my brain to remember. “Kronos was the king god, and-“ _

“God?” Zeus asked in a low voice, thunder rolling in the background.

_ “God?” Mr. Brunner asked. _

_ “Titan,” I corrected myself. “And ... he didn’t trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-“ _

_ “Eeew!” said one of the girls behind me. _

“Yes, not my fondest moment either,” Poseidon muttered.

_ “-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans,” I continued, “and the gods won.” _

“Twice,” Ares added.

“With our help,” Annabeth muttered. Fortunately for her, she said it quiet enough so that the war god did not hear her, but that didn’t stop Percy from snickering.

_ Some snickers from the group. _

_ Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, “Like we’re going to use this in real life. Like it’s going to say on our job applications, ‘Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.’” _

_ “And why, Mr. Jackson,” Brunner said, “to paraphrase Miss Bobofit’s excellent question, does this matter in real life?” _

_ “Busted,” Grover muttered. _

_ “Shut up,” Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair. _

_ At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears. _

“Yea, and that makes the old horse too powerful,” Thalia grumbled.

Percy leaned towards her and joked, “Don’t say that too loud or you’ll have an arrow in your back.”

_ I thought about his question, and shrugged. “I don’t know, sir.” _

_ “I see.” Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. “Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan’s stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it’s time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?” _

“Old man sure does know how to lighten up a conversation,” Annabeth said.

_ The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. _

_ Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, “Mr. Jackson.” _

_ I knew that was coming. _

_ I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. “Sir?” _

“Why aren’t you this formal anymore?” Hera cut in. “You never say ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ to anyone anymore.”

“Maybe it’s because I’ve had to carry old hippies across highways, defend Mount Olympus, and fight the literal earth,” Percy said. “I think I lost my manners around the tenth time I almost died.”

“I think it was the fifth,” Annabeth said.

The Queen Goddess sat back with a hmph.

_ Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn’t let you go--intense brown eyes that could’ve been a thousand years old and had seen everything. _

“It’s more than a thousand years old and you should know that by now,” Dionysus said, taking a sip of his goblet. “Peter Johnson, don’t you know your own trainer’s age?”

_ “You must learn the answer to my question,” Mr. Brunner told me. _

_ “About the Titans?” _

_ “About real life. And how your studies apply to it.” _

_ “Oh.” _

_ “What you learn from me,” he said, “is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.” _

“Chiron?” Leo asked.

“Probably,” Piper added. “Has his serious undertone.”

_ I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard. _

_ I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: “What ho!’” and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life. No--he didn’t expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn’t learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly. _

_ I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he’d been at this girl’s funeral. _

“I think I was there too,” Dionysus said. “Who’s to say. Mortals die so much.”

_ He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. _

_ The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue. _

_ Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I’d ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We’d had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn’t have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in. _

“Now what were you mad about this time, brother,” Poseidon chuckled. “The pizza place you like out of pies again?”

Zeus glared at him as thunder rolled through the throne room once again.

_ Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady’s purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn’t seeing a thing. _

_ Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn’t know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn’t make it elsewhere. _

“Fountain plus Percy?” Jason said. “Who was the genius who put those two together? Especially with Percy this moody.”

“Shut up, Grace,” Percy grinned.

_ “Detention?” Grover asked. _

_ “Nah,” I said. “Not from Brunner. I just wish he’d lay off me sometimes. I mean--I’m not a genius.” _

“It’s okay, Percy,” Annabeth chastised. “We all know that.”

_ Grover didn’t say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, “Can I have your apple?” _

“What a charming guy,” Hazel said dryly.

_ I didn’t have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. _

_ I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom’s apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn’t seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She’d hug me and be glad to see me, but she’d be disappointed, too. She’d send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn’t be able to stand that sad look she’d give me. _

_ Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.  _

“I need to nail that wheelchair’s magic,” Leo said, thinking to himself. “That guy could live in that thing for months and still be fine.”

_ I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends--I guess she’d gotten tired of stealing from the tourists-and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover’s lap. _

_ “Oops.” She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos. _

“Sounds like that girl in Wilderness School,” Leo said, turning to Piper. “What was her name?”

“Who?” Piper asked. “Are you talking about Wendy? She was so sweet though.”

“Yea, yea,” Leo said, waving her off. “Wendy looked like a Cheeto.”

Piper slapped his shoulder.

_ I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, “Count to ten, get control of your temper.” But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears. _

_ I don’t remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, “Percy pushed me!” _

“Called it,” Jason sang as he and Thalia high-fived.

_ Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us. _

_ Some of the kids were whispering: “Did you see-“ _

_ “-the water-“ _

_ “-like it grabbed her-“ _

_ I didn’t know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. _

_ As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I’d done something she’d been waiting for all semester. “Now, honey-“ _

_ “I know,” I grumbled. “A month erasing workbooks.” _

_ That wasn’t the right thing to say. _

_ “Come with me,” Mrs. Dodds said. _

_ “Wait!” Grover yelped. “It was me. I pushed her.” _

“I love Grover,” Thalia sighed. “What a perfect idiot.”

_ I stared at him, stunned. I couldn’t believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. _

_ She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled. _

_ “I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she said. _

_ “But-“ _

_ “You-will-stay-here.” _

_ Grover looked at me desperately. _

_ “It’s okay, man,” I told him. “Thanks for trying.” _

_ “Honey,” Mrs. Dodds barked at me. “Now.” _

_ Nancy Bobofit smirked. _

_ I gave her my deluxe I’ll-kill-you-later stare. Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn’t there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on. _

_ How’d she get there so fast? _

_ I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I’ve missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things. _

“No, it’s just a monster,” Frank mumbled.

_ I wasn’t so sure. _

_ I went after Mrs. Dodds. _

_ Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel. I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. _

_ Okay, I thought. She’s going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. _

_ But apparently that wasn’t the plan. _

_ I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. _

_ Except for us, the gallery was empty. _

_ Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. _

_ Even without the noise, I would’ve been nervous. It’s weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it… _

_ “You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said. _

_ I did the safe thing. I said, “Yes, ma’am.” _

_ She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. “Did you really think you would get away with it?” _

_ The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil. _

_ She’s a teacher, I thought nervously. It’s not like she’s going to hurt me. _

_ I said, “I’ll-I’ll try harder, ma’am.” _

_ Thunder shook the building. _

_ “We are not fools, Percy Jackson,” Mrs. Dodds said. “It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.” _

_ I didn’t know what she was talking about. _

_ All I could think of was that the teachers must’ve found the illegal stash of candy I’d been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they’d realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book. _

“Percy Jackson!” Annabeth exclaimed.

“Hey, I was making bank,” he responded, smirk on his face.

She rolled her eyes. “I was talking about not doing your homework,” she scolded. “Plagiarizing is one of the worst crimes out there!”

“You’re really going to talk to me about plagiarizing in the life we’re living?” he asked, smirk still on his face.

_ “Well?” she demanded. _

_ “Ma’am, I don’t...” _

_ “Your time is up,” she hissed. _

_ Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn’t human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons. _

“That sounds familiar,” Hazel muttered.

Nico stretched. “That’s cause she’s one of the three furies,” he said. “Alecto, if I recall correctly.”

_ Then things got even stranger. _

_ Mr. Brunner, who’d been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand. _

_ “What ho, Percy!” he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. _

_ Mrs. Dodds lunged at me. _

_ With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn’t a pen anymore. It was a sword--Mr. Brunner’s bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day. _

_ Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. _

_ My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword. _

_ She snarled, “Die, honey!” _

_ And she flew straight at me. _

_ Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword. _

“Dude, have you never played with toy swords before?” Leo asked. “Literally, if I were thrown a pen that morphed into a sword and a furry was flying towards me I would be like ‘ _ whoosh, whoosh, _ die’.”

Calypso placed a hand on Leo’s shoulder. “Don’t you mean, fury?” she asked him, making him blush at his mistake.

_ The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss! _

_ Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me. _

_ I was alone. _

_ There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. _

_ Mr. Brunner wasn’t there. Nobody was there but me. _

_ My hands were still trembling. My lunch must’ve been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. _

_ Had I imagined the whole thing? _

_ I went back outside. _

_ It had started to rain. _

_ Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, “I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt.” _

“Who?” asked Will, Reyna, and Piper, all three of who were thoroughly engrossed in the story.

_ I said, “Who?” _

_ “Our teacher. Duh!” _

_ I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. _

_ She just rolled her eyes and turned away. _

_ I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was. _

_ He said, “Who?” _

_ But he paused first, and he wouldn’t look at me, so I thought he was messing with me. _

_ “Not funny, man,” I told him. “This is serious.” _

_ Thunder boomed overhead. _

_ I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he’d never moved. _

_ I went over to him. _

_ He looked up, a little distracted. “Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson.” _

_ I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn’t even realized I was still holding it. _

_ “Sir,” I said, “where’s Mrs. Dodds?” _

_ He stared at me blankly. “Who?” _

_ “The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher.” _

_ He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. “Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?” _

“Is everyone ready for chapter two?” Apollo asked cheerfully.

“That’s how they decided to end the chapter?” asked Annabeth. “It’s such a strange cut-off.”

“We’re ready,” Percy grinned, throwing an arm around Annabeth’s shoulders to try to calm her down.

The god of music among other things took a deep breath before continuing to read about Percy’s first adventures as a demigod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I was busy all week because of America day and I figured I should get something up before I go camping for the weekend. I should have a new chapter up every week, maybe every two weeks since it is summer break. Hope you all enjoyed! ((:


	3. Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death

_ I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty- four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr-a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip-had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas. _

_ Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho. _

“You are psycho though,” Thalia pointed out.

Percy rolled his eyes. “Oh, please,” he said. “At least I was a human and not something like a tree.”

“Listen here, Barnacle Breath,” Thalia hissed.

He snuck his hand into his pocket, ready for a fight. “What are you going to do, Pinecone Face?” Percy challenged me. “Tickle me with pine needles?”

“Shut up,” Annabeth said to both of them, holding her arms out to hold the two powerful demigods back. “This isn’t an Avengers movie. We don’t want yet another civil war.”

_ It got so I almost believed them Mrs. Dodds had never existed. _

_ Almost. _ __ __ __ __ __

_ But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying. _ __ __ __ __

_ Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum. _

_ I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat. _

“The nightmares really are the best part of being a demigod,” Piper mumbled. “The only thing that tops the nightmares are the visions you see in random reflecting surfaces.”

Dionysus frowned. “I think the best thing about being a demigod really is being granted the privilege of being in the presence of such gods,” he lightly argued.

“My daughter’s being sarcastic, D,” Aphrodite said, waving her hand at him. “You really spend too much time at that camp. Get with the times.”

_ The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year. _

“So Zeus is trying to kill you,” Nico muttered. “What’s new?”

“I didn’t know anything about demigod life then,” Percy replied.

“Again,” Jason weighed in. “What’s new?”

The boys jostled each other around as Apollo continued reading.

_ I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class. _

_ Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good. _

_ The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy. _

“Is it a shocker?” Will asked. “We’re demigods. Getting kicked out of schools is part of the job description.”

Apollo gave Will a pointed look, not thinking that  _ his _ son was one to be a troublemaker. Surely none of his children were less than perfect, just like their father.

_ Fine, I told myself. Just fine. _

_ I was homesick. _

_ I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties. _

“But, Paul?” Hazel asked, trailing off.

Percy shook his head. “There was a different stepfather before Paul, and oh, boy,” he replied, remembering the magnificence of Gabe Ugliano.

_ And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. _

“YOU SAID YOU WOULD MISS THE SMELL OF  _ PINE TREES _ ,” Thalia screeched at Percy. “Before you even knew me you loved pine trees. What does that say about you?”

Percy rolled his eyes. “You can knit pick any line of this book and make something relevant of it, can’t you?” he asked sassily.

_ I'd miss Latin class, too-Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well. _

_ As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him. _

_ The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one- eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it. _

“What was this book called?” Annabeth asked no one in particular. “The Lightning Thief? If I’m not mistaken, you’re going to learn the difference between Chiron and Charon real soon.

Frank raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?” he asked. “I mean sure, he’ll figure out who Chiron is, but you don’t meet Charon everyday.”

Annabeth’s eyes twinkled as she grinned slyly at him. “Bet.”

_ I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt. _

_ I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson. _

_ I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book. _

_ I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried. _

“Maybe I should have tried that,” Piper said. “Even though I didn’t know I could charmspeak at the time, I might have been able to accidentally convince the teacher to give me a good grade.”

_ I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor. _

_ I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy, sir." _

_ I froze. _

_ I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult. _

_ I inched closer. _

“You probably eavesdrop all the time,” Leo said. “I mean, who’s going to stop Persassy from getting all that juicy gossip?”

Percy was thrown off. “Persassy?” he asked, completely ignoring Leo’s insult.

“Yea,” the elvish boy responded. “It’s ‘cause you’re Percy and you’re sassy. Persassy.”

_ "... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too-" _

_ “We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more." _

_ "But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline- " _

“Why is it always a solstice?” Frank asked, not thinking about the volume of his voice. He almost immediately blushed because he hadn’t meant to say anything.

If everyone had not known how embarrassed Frank was, they might have shushed him. That being said, if it wasn’t Frank that had spoken and if it was, say, Leo, very passive aggressive ‘shut up’s would have rang out throughout the throne room.

_ "Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can." _

_ "Sir, he saw her... ." _

_ "His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that." _

_ "Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean." _

Thalia looked down at her hands, the troublemaker smirk wiped off of her face. “You didn’t fail, Grover,” she whispered. “You did all you could to save the three of us.”

No one asked the electric-blue-eyed girl questions, but the tension in the air thickened. Percy squeezed Annabeth’s hand as the blonde refrained from comforting her friend that did not want to be comforted.

Anger was the only thing that coursed through Thalia’s vein for a split second as she thought of all the people who placed blame on Grover for a decision she made. How could such a sweet satyr be liable for a decision that she had made to protect her friends.

_ "You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next fall-" _

“Someone stop taking the blame,” Thalia said through gritted teeth.

_ The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud. _

Thalia chuckled, releasing the tension in the room. “Idiot,” she smirked.

_ Mr. Brunner went silent. _

_ My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall. _

_ A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow. _

“Bro, how did they let him have that kind of weapon in a boarding school?” Leo exclaimed. “Don’t they do background checks of teachers anymore?”

Piper tilted her head. “Well, with the decline in funding for education, I’m pretty sure most school systems are desperate for pretty much anyone with a clean record for about five years,” she said before deadpanning. “Or Chiron has the ability to manipulate the Mist like literally every other non-mortal we’ve met.”

_ I opened the nearest door and slipped inside. _

_ A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on. _

_ A bead of sweat trickled down my neck. _

_ Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice." _

_ "Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..." _

_ "Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow." _

_ "Don't remind me." _

_ The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office. _

_ I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever. _

_ Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm. _

_ Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night. _

_ “Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?" _

_ I didn't answer. _

_ “You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?" _

_ "Just... tired." _

_ I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed. _

“But he’s got that sweet, sweet, empathy link,” Annabeth said in a sing-song voice. “He knows everything you’re feeling.”

Percy gave Annabeth a funny look. “You know, when you say it like that it sounds really bad,” he said.

_ I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing. _

_ But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger. _

“You’re always in some kind of danger,” Jason pointed out. “Danger kind of just finds you.”

_ The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside. _

_ For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem. _

_ "Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best." _

_ His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. _

_ I mumbled, "Okay, sir." _

_ "I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time." _

“He’s not the best with words is he?” Hera asked.

Dionysus shook his head. “Usually he’s very well-spoken, but it seems to me that he’s a very bad bearer of bad news,” he replied.

“Hey, horse dude could tell me that the world was ending and then tell me death games in the forest are about to start,” Leo spoke up. “He’s a terrific bearer of bad news. At least, he is in horse form.”

_ My eyes stung. _

_ Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out. _

_ "Right," I said, trembling. _

_ "No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be-" _

_ "Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me. _

_ "Percy-" _

_ But I was already gone. _

_ On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase. _

_ The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies. _

“I wonder who that sounds like,” Leo said, whipping his head towards a certain daughter of Aphrodite.

Piper rolled her eyes and slapped the son of Hephaestus. “I don’t do any of that stuff anymore,” she mumbled. “Now I’m playing death games in the forest with you, nimrod.”

_ They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city. _

_ What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall. _

_ "Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool." _

_ They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed. _

_ The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city. _

“This satyr, did you say, is very devoted,” Calypso said admirably. “I don’t think I would have been able to hang around Percy Jackson alone for a whole school year and then some.”

Percy grinned. “On Grover’s behalf, thank you,” he replied. Then he said nothing else as Calypso was completely entitled to her opinion of him given the way he had accidentally treated her.

_ During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound. _

_ Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. _

_ I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?" _

“Son,” Poseidon started, sitting up straighter in his throne, “we might have to talk about conversation starters and what you should not say to those poor satyrs.”

_ Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha-what do you mean?" _

_ I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam. _

_ Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?" _

_ "Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice deadline?" _

_ He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..." _

“He’s literally so bad at lying,” Reyna said.

_ "Grover-" _

_ "And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..." _

“He should probably stop talking now,” Hazel jumped in.

_ "Grover, you're a really, really bad liar." _

_ His ears turned pink. _

_ From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer. _

_ The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like: _

_ Grover Underwood _

_ Keeper _

_ Half-Blood Hill _

_ Long Island, New York _

_ (800) 009-0009 _

“Was the cursive your idea?” Will asked Dionysus, having had the terrible experience with the satyr calling card.

The god of wine nodded slowly. “I figured it would make everyone’s lives interesting, watching you demigods try to read the card,” he said smugly.

“Why do you hate us?” Percy asked rhetorically.

_ "What's Half-" _

_ "Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address." _

_ My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy. _

“Heck yeah, we’re rich,” Zeus cheered uncharacteristically. He cleared his throat before motioning to Apollo to carry on.

_ "Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion." _

“It’s baby blue,” Jason chimed in.

_ He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me." _

_ "Why would I need you?" _

Everyone in the throne room, with the exception of Percy, sucked air through their teeth. Even with their standards of always being bullied or threatened by other teenagers and monsters alike, that was a harsh blow.

_ It came out harsher than I meant it to. _

_ Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I-I kind of have to protect you." _

_ I stared at him. _

_ All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me. _

_ "Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?" _

“So, at this point literally everything was trying to kill Percy,” Annabeth explained to the demigods and Calypso, “which is not unusual, but it was less so than usual. He was in danger of dying, but not as aggressively as it is now.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Wise Girl,” he said. “That was really necessary.”

_ There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway. _

_ After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else. _

_ We were on a stretch of country road-no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand. _

_ The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen. _

“Oh no,” Poseidon said, blanching at the appearance of the Fates this early in his son’s adventures.

“Dad,” Percy called out, “I’m literally still right here, like six years later.”

_ I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn. _

Hermes, who had been strangely quiet the entire reading, scratched his chin. “Percy,” he said. “Is this about who I think it is?”

Percy grimly nodded while squeezing Annabeth’s hand again. The air around Thalia crackled a little before she calmed down.

_ All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses. _

_ The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me. _

_ I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching. _

_ "Grover?" I said. "Hey, man-" _

_ "Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?" _

_ "Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?" _

Hazel giggled.

“How are you always making jokes even though you know you could die any day?” Frank asked incredulously.

Percy shrugged. “How am I supposed to live life to the fullest if I’m not laughing and making others laugh?” he responded with a question.

_ "Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all." _

_ The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors-gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath. _

_ "We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on." _

_ "What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there." _

_ "Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back. _

_ Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for-Sasquatch or Godzilla. _

_ At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life. _

_ The passengers cheered. _

_ "Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!" _

Though no one noticed, Hephaestus took that moment to look up and ponder whether or not he had a son that ended up being a Greyhound bus driver.

_ Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu. _

_ Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering. _

_ "Grover?" _

_ "Yeah?" _

_ "What are you not telling me?" _

_ He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?" _

_ "You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?" _

_ His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw." _

_ "The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn." _

_ He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost-older. _

_ He said, "You saw her snip the cord." _

_ "Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal. _

_ "This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time." _

_ "What last time?" _

_ "Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth." _

“If Grover didn’t undergo that wonderful character development that turned him into the person he is now, I would probably march to wherever he is after this whole deal is done and whack him with a pine cone,” Thalia grumbled. It was violent, but it was her way of showing gratitude towards the anxiety-ridden satyr.

_ "Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?" _

_ "Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me." _

_ This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could. _

_ "Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked. _

_ No answer. _

_ "Grover-that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?" _

_ He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin. _

“So, Grover’s a big wuss, someone’s going to die, and Percy’s kind of funny,” Leo summed up. “Let’s move on to the next chapter!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes I'll never update when I want to...


	4. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants

_ Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal. _

“You’re actually the worst person,” Leo said in a joyful tone, putting away the thing he was twiddling with and wrapping an arm around Calypso. Percy knew that they were still friends, but Leo would never forgive him for how he forgot Calypso on Ogygia.

_ I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?" _

_ Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown. _

“Dude!” Thalia exclaimed, whipping around to look at Percy. “That’s literally the worst way to lose him! Being ditched while you’re in the bathroom is the worst because, at first, you’re wondering if you just can’t see them in the crowd or not. Then you realize that they just left you, or you’re in denial and you’re panicking.”

_ "East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver. _

_ A word about my mother, before you meet her. _

“She’s a wonderful woman,” Hazel said.

“Out of the nine women in my normal life, she’s number one,” Nico said, warily watching Demeter to make sure that she didn’t smite him.

“Hands down one of the best moms out there,” Thalia added.

“She’s more of a mother to me than my stepmother,” Annabeth contributed.

Percy threw his hands up. “I know, I know,” he said cooly, “Sally Jackson is the best person in the world.”

_ Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma. _

“And though she had the worst luck, she still had a beautiful personality,” Poseidon said dreamily.

_ The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad. _

_ I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures. _

Poseidon smiled softly, glad that Percy somehow remembered his secret visits when his son was still a baby.

_ See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back. _

Athena guffawed. “More like the other way around,” she said. “He set sail across the Atlantic, met your mom, and then left her because he broke a sacred oath.”

“Might I remind you, my lady, that Hades broke the oath first,” Nico pointed out.

Hazel piped up, “He broke it twice, too!”

Thalia leaned back into the couch she was seated on. “Don’t forget that the glorious Lord of the Sky had me before Percy was born, and then went back the year after Percy was born in his Roman form and had Jason,” she pointed out, giving her dad a pointed look.

“I don’t know why you seem angry about that, dear,” Zeus said nervously sweet. His eyes kept ping-ponging between Hera and his extremely intimidating daughter.

“It’s because you showered my mother with gifts and then left her, causing her to be emotionally unstable,” Thalia said with an edge in her voice.

Awkwardly, Apollo continued reading to avoid a family fight.

_ Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea. _

Ignoring Zeus’s drama, Poseidon chuckled. He missed Sally. She was an intelligent woman.

_ She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid. _

“Of all the women you chose to break the oath with, I think you chose a wonderful one,” Athena whispered to Poseidon. It was one of the first times that Poseidon hadn’t been insulted by Athena since he’s known her. To say that he was surprised would be an understatement.

_ Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts. _

“Yuck, why would Sally stay with a man like that?” Piper said, scrunching up her nose. She couldn’t imagine how a strong, independent woman like Sally could stand someone that sounds so disgusting as Gabe Ugliano.

Leo laughed out loud, slapping his knee. “Your evil stepfather’s name is ‘Ugliano’?” he asked incredulous. “Imagine all the names you could have come up with and you called him ‘Smelly Gabe’. You could have called him  _ Ugly- _ ano.”

_ Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example. _

_ I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. _

“Sounds like my uncle, Sergio,” Leo grumbled.

Jason looked over at him quizzically. “How did you end up with the absolute worst relatives?” the blond asked.

_ Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home." _

_ "Where's my mom?" _

_ "Working," he said. "You got any cash?" _

The room went silent and the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. Everyone was tense with hatred for Gabe Ugliano. That is, everyone except for Percy was tense with hatred for Gabe Ugliano. He knew that Gabe got what he was due.

_ That was it. No Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months? _

Percy chuckled. “That’s what you did,” he pointed at Hera, “when you wiped my memory and dropped me in the middle of California.”

_ Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something. _

“HE SOUNDS LIKE THE GUY FROM  _ HANDY MANNY!”  _ Leo screamed. The boy fell over, cackling, while Calypso covered her face in disappointment.

_ He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out. _

_ "I don't have any cash," I told him. _

_ He raised a greasy eyebrow. _

_ Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else. _

“Now that would be a very useful talent,” Frank said.

Leo calmed down a little bit to say, “Maybe you should turn into a bloodhound and see if you can sniff out some money.”

“His scent covered everything else?” Athena asked Percy. “Is that why your mother stayed with him?”

Percy did not respond to the goddess of wisdom, but his eyes withheld no secrets.

“Your mother sounds like a very caring and intelligent woman,” Reyna told him, realizing the goddess’s hunch.

_ "You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?" _

“And that’s probably the most he’s ever thought since I left for Yancy that year,” Percy muttered.

_ Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here." _

_ "Am I right?" Gabe repeated. _

_ Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony. _

_ "Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose." _

_ "Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!" _

“So where can I find this Ugliano man?” Hazel asked, anger shining on her face.

Percy sat quiet once again, knowing that the end of Gabe Ugliano was more satisfying than his friends could dream up.

_ I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer. _

“Gross,” Reyna scowled, “but safe.”

_ I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home. _

_ Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn. _

_ But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic-how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone- something-was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons. _

_ Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?" _

_ She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted. _

_ My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few gray streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad. I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe. _

_ "Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!" _

_ Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home. _

“She sounds like the best,” Frank said, sniffling. He couldn’t help but remember his mother who died almost a year ago.

_ We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right? _

Not only was Frank choking up, but everyone in the throne room was remembering their mother and the kindness she’s shown. Well, most everyone. Some were remembering Hera and wondering why she couldn’t show the motherly care that Sally Jackson did. Others were kind of lost because their mother was a goddess who was absent most of their lives.

_ I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her. _

_ From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally-how about some bean dip, huh?" _

_ I gritted my teeth. _

_ My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe. _

_ For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad. _

_ Until that trip to the museum… _

_ "What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?" _

_ "No, Mom." _

_ I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid. _

“Well you’ve been doing a bunch of other bad, crappy things,” Hazel mumbled. “Why not pile onto that?”

_ She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me. _

_ "I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach." _

“Wow, the son of the sea god going to the sea?” Will asked in mock surprise. “I would have never guessed.”

_ My eyes widened. "Montauk?" _

_ "Three nights-same cabin." _

_ "When?" _

_ She smiled. "As soon as I get changed." _

_ I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money. _

_ Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?" _

“I want to punch him,” Frank growled.

_ I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here. _

_ "I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip." _

_ Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?" _

_ "I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go." _

_ "Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step-father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works." _

_ Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?" _

“There’s a clothes budget?!” Aphrodite shrieked.

_ "Yes, honey," my mother said. _

_ "And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back." _

_ "We'll be very careful." _

“I’d crash that car as much as I’d want if he treated me like this,” Piper grumbled.

_ Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game." _

_ Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week. _

_ But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad. _

_ Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought? _

“Because she loves me so very much,” Percy said softly. He could never repay his mother for all that she’s done for him.

_ "I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now." _

_ Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement. _

_ "Yeah, whatever," he decided. _

_ He went back to his game. _

_ "Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?" _

_ For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes-the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride-as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air. _

_ But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip. _

_ An hour later we were ready to leave. _

“Yea, because you don’t have enough clothes with the budget he’s given you,” Aphrodite hissed, still mad about the aforementioned clothes budget.

_ Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking-and more important, his '78 Camaro-for the whole weekend. _

_ "Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch." _

“Like Percy would be the one driving,” Jason said in disbelief. “Obviously this man has a brain the size of a bean from his bean dip.”

_ Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me. _

_ Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out. _

_ I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it. _

_ Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. _

_ I loved the place. _

_ We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad. _

“I can’t believe she still went there,” Poseidon said wistfully. It was one of the best times of his life.

_ As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea. _

_ We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work. _

What’s with the blue food?” Reyna asked. “Why is food always blue around you?”

_ I guess I should explain the blue food. _

_ See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This-along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano-was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me. _

“What an icon,” Calypso said. Then she turned to Leo and asked quickly, “Did I use that right? Was that the right use of modern terms?”

_ When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop. _

_ Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk-my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them. _

“Oh, dear,” Poseidon said. Though he knew this story was from years ago he couldn’t help but ache to dissipate Sally Jackson’s pain.

_ "He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes." _

_ Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud." _

“I’m very proud,” Poseidon smiled softly, looking at Percy who was calmly listening to his 12 year-old self in distress. “You did great, Sally.”

_ I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years. _

_ "How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?" _

_ She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin." _

“Wait, but then how were you born in August?” Will asked, very confused. “That’s not how conception works.”

_ "But... he knew me as a baby." _

_ "No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born." _   
“Jokes on Sally, I visited you as a child!” Poseidon said smugly.

Percy grinned widely, happy that he was right about something. He knew that his father had visited him. He remembered it.

_ I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile. _

_ I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me … _

_ I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe. _

_ "Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?" _

_ She pulled a marshmallow from the fire. _

_ "I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something." _

_ "Because you don't want me around?" I regretted the words as soon as they were out. _

_ My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I-I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." _

_ Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said-that it was best for me to leave Yancy. _

_ "Because I'm not normal," I said. _

“HELL YEA, YOU’RE NOT NORMAL!” Leo shouted. “UP TOP!”

Everyone looked at Leo like he was absolutely mental. Though anyone else might have been embarrassed of being rejected, but all Leo did was shrug and turn back to Apollo.

_ "You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe." _

_ "Safe from what?" _

“Literally everything,” Thalia said. “Everything is actually out to get you. You’re rarely going to be completely safe from anything these days.”

“Thanks, Miss Sunshine,” Percy grumbled.

_ She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget. _

_ During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head. _

_ Before that-a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands. _

“You had something crazy happen to you when you were younger and you thought you lived a completely normal life?” Annabeth asked. “Maybe your head has more seaweed than I thought it did.”

_ In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move. _

_ I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that. _

“You should have told her,” Frank said in a sing-song voice. “Honesty is the best policy.”

Percy raised his eyebrows at the bulky hero. “Thank you, Demigod Poster Child of the Year,” he said in an announcer voice. “I should employ you as my constant moral compass.”

_ "I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it." _

_ "My father wanted me to go to a special school?" _

_ "Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp." _

_ My head was spinning. Why would my dad-who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born- talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before? _

_ "I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I-I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying goodbye to you for good." _

“She would have had a better chance of seeing you if she sent you to camp,” Reyna pointed out. “The longer she kept you untrained and unknowing, the bigger the chance of you dying.”

Percy showcased the Roman praetor with his hand. “And here we have the runner-up for Miss Sunshine 2010,” he added.

_ "For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..." _

_ She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry. _

_ That night I had a vivid dream. _

_ It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf. The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagles wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder. _

_ I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No! _

_ I woke with a start. _

_ Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery. _

“You both are so dramatic,” Aphrodite said, examining her nails.

Hephaestus laughed. “That’s gold, coming from you,” he said quiet enough to evade her ears.

_ With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane." _

_ I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end. _

“You must have been very upset, my Lord,” Athena noted.

Zeus nodded slowly. “I do believe I remember what happened during Jackson’s first adventures,” he replied. “It will be very eventful, but maybe embarrassing for some of us.”

_ Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice-someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door. _

_ My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock. _

_ Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover. _

_ "Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?" _

_ My mother looked at me in terror-not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come. _

_ "Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?" _

_ I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing. _

_ "O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?" _

“Wait, what’s behind him?” Hazel asked. When no one answered she tapped Leo, but he swatted her hand away. This was when the book got interesting.

_ I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on-and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be … _

_ My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!" _

_ I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning. _

_ She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!" _

_ Grover ran for the Camaro-but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked. _

“So it took Grover a year and some until you found out that he was a satyr,” Thalia mused. “Either you’re really bad at figuring things out, Grover’s gotten better at hiding the fact that he’s half goat, or both.”

“Both,” chimed everyone else.

Percy threw his arms up in protest.

_ Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves. _

“Yup,” Frank said, rubbing his hands together, “but moving on.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> two updates two days in a row???? she must be smoking CRACK


	5. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> reeeeeally getting better at this whole updating pizazz
> 
> also if you'd like to give me feedback that'd be great. my tumblr is woahludakris if you're interested in just sending a pm or an ask or smth

_ We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind-shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas. _

“What a woman,” Ares said dreamily.

Percy looked at him in disgusted until the war god was pelted with a dozen blue hairbrushes. No one had seen where they had come from, but Aphrodite was smirking as if she was proud of her handiwork.

_ Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants. But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo- lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal. _

“Land lion?” Leo whispered to Calypso. All she did was shake her head at her metal-brained boyfriend.

_ All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?" _

_ Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you." _

_ "Watching me?" _

_ "Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend." _

_ "Um ... what are you, exactly?" _

_ "That doesn't matter right now." _

_ "It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-" _

“Peter Johnson,” Dionysus tsked, “surely by now you know the difference between a donkey and a goat. Has Chiron taught you nothing?”

_ Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!" _

_ I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat. _

_ "Goat!" he cried. _

_ "What?" _

_ "I'm a goat from the waist down." _

_ "You just said it didn't matter." _

_ "Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!" _

_ "Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?" _

_ "Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?" _

_ "So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!" _

“That’s probably not the time to bring up that argument,” Hazel said as she leaned forward, immersing herself more into the reading.

_ "Of course." _

_ "Then why-" _

_ "The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are." _

_ "Who I-wait a minute, what do you mean?" _

_ The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail. _

_ "Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety." _

_ "Safety from what? Who's after me?" _

_ "Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions." _

“This was Hades’s plot?” Poseidon seethed.

Percy rolled his eyes. “Dad, you lived through this,” he reminded the sea god. “You should remember what happened.

“Yes, but I never saw it from your point of view.”

_ "Grover!" _

_ "Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?" _

_ I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird. _

_ My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences. _

_ "Where are we going?" I asked. _

_ "The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you." _

_ "The place you didn't want me to go." _

_ "Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger." _

_ "Because some old ladies cut yarn." _

_ "Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die." _

_ "Whoa. You said 'you.'" _

_ "No I didn't. I said 'someone.'" _

_ "You meant 'you.' As in me." _

_ "I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you." _

“Grover really knows what to say and how to say it, doesn’t he,” Thalia muttered.

Annabeth looked over at Percy. “You really find the worst times to start arguing with your best friend,” she noted.

_ "Boys!" my mom said. _

_ She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid-a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm. _

_ "What was that?" I asked. _

_ "We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please." _

_ I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive. _

_ Outside, nothing but rain and darkness-the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me. _

_ Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw rattling boom!, and our car exploded. _

_ I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. _

_ I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow." _

“Great commentary there, bud,” Leo cheered.

_ "Percy!" my mom shouted. _

_ "I'm okay... ." _

_ I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in. _

_ Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!" _

“So it wasn’t only Hades, but it was Zeus too,” Poseidon said under his breath

_ He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die! _

“Happy thoughts,” Frank sighed

_ Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope. _

“Hey!” Leo shouted, calling the attention of everyone in the room. “That’s how we know Jason’s alive after he’s hit his head again!”

Jason glared at his best friend. Everyone in the room didn’t want to make the lightning boy upset, but they couldn’t help but sputter to try to keep from laughing.

_ "Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered. _

_ I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns. _

“Oh, no,” Will gulped, remembering who Percy’s second monster was.

_ I swallowed hard. "Who is-" _

_ "Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car." _

_ My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking. _

_ "Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy-you have to run. Do you see that big tree?" _

_ "What?" _

_ Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill. _

“That’s me,” Thalia said. “Fourth chapter and then I finally make an appearance? Perce, you gotta hurry up your story-telling.”

_ "That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door." _

_ "Mom, you're coming too." _

_ Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean. _

“What a brave woman,” Hermes said admirably.”

_ "No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover." _

_ "Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder. _

_ The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands-huge meaty hands-were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns … _

_ "He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line." _

“Wrong, and wrong,” Percy muttered. “Wow, it feels weird correcting my mom for once.”

_ "But..." _

_ "We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please." _

_ I got mad, then-mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull. _

_ I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom." _

_ "I told you-" _

_ "Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover." _

_ I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid. _

“Hah!” Ares cackled. “Shark bait’s a little on the weak side isn’t he?”

Annabeth and Percy smirked at the war god.  _ Just you wait, _ they both thought.

_ Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist- high grass. _

_ Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders. _

_ His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns-enormous black-and- white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener. _

“Is that the-” Jason began before being interrupted by Nico.

“What’s up with the weird connections?” the pale boy asked, furrowing his eyebrows. “Who sticks their horns in an electric sharpener?”

_ I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real. _

“That’s ironic,” Calypso said. “It was one of the first stories, and now he’s one of your first monsters.”

_ I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's-" _

_ "Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you." _

_ "But he's the Min-" _

_ "Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power." _

“And she’s absolutely correct,” Athena said. “How’d you seduce such a smart woman? It must have been a mind trick.”

Poseidon glared at her but said no more. He didn’t want to start a fight with the goddess of wisdom in front of his son. No, that would be too embarrassing for his girlfriend.

_ The pine tree was still way too far-a hundred yards uphill at least. _

“Aye buddy,” Thalia beckoned, “I’m right here.”

_ I glanced behind me again. _

_ The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows-or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away. _

_ "Food?" Grover moaned. _

_ "Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?" _

_ "His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough." _

“Because you are one stinky boy!” Leo said excitedly, obviously having no filter.

_ As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded. _

_ Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying. _

“Oops,” Frank muttered under his breath.

_ Oops. _

_ "Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way- directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?" _

_ "How do you know all this?" _

_ "I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me." _

“I would like to meet this woman one day,” Athena declared. “Maybe I shall give her my blessing.”

Percy shrugged. “She is a writer now, so anything would help,” he told her.

_ "Keeping me near you? But-" _

_ Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill. _

_ He'd smelled us. _

_ The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter. _

_ The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us. _

_ My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said." _

_ I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right-it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat. _

_ He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest. _

_ The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side. _

_ The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass. _

_ We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it. _

_ The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover. _

_ "Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!" _

_ But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air. _

_ "Mom!" _

_ She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" _

_ Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone. _

“NO!” screamed Piper, Frank, and Will

_ "No!" _

_ Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs-the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons. _

_ The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too. _

_ I couldn't allow that. _

_ I stripped off my red rain jacket. _

“Funny how you forgot to mention that it was red,” Annabeth said.

Percy grinned. “It wasn’t that important at the time,” he replied.

“Mhm.”

_ "Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!" _

“Ground beef’s a good one,” Hermes noted. Actually noted. The god pulled a flip notebook and pen out of thin air and wrote down something before turning his attention back to the story.

_ "Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists. _

_ I had an idea-a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment. _

_ But it didn't happen like that. _

_ The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge. _

_ Time slowed down. _

_ My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck. _

“HOW?!” rang out throughout the throne room, immediately followed by shushes. No one knew who said what because everyone was following the story too closely at this point.

_ How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out. _

_ The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils. _

“Ok, gross,” Aphrodite said quickly before immersing herself back into the story.

_ The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward. _

“Man, my tree’s just a durable as I am,” Thalia said to herself.

_ Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off. _

_ "Food!" Grover moaned. _

_ The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then-snap! _

_ The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife. _

_ The monster charged. _

_ Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage. _

_ The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate-not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart. _

_ The monster was gone. _

_ The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm-house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover-I wasn't going to let him go. _

_ The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be." _

_ "Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside." _

“And enter Annabeth stage right,” Leo announced.

Annabeth turned to Percy. “You thought I was pretty?” she asked.

“Like a princess!” Thalia added.

Percy was flushed, not ready to be exposed in front of the Olympian council. “You said I  _ must be _ the one,” he pointed out weakly.

Annabeth rolled her eyes. “Because I was dying to go on a quest,” she retorted, slapping her boyfriend on the chest.

Percy rubbed where she hit him. “So next chapter?”


End file.
